Confession to the Elders

I have spent days among children.
They are like summer thunder showers,
the flowers of diaphanous curtains,
the cones of pines with mysterious edges.
While elders go and leave them,
not happily,
I come and sit with them,
a bonus of my leisure,
leave taking from the commerce of living.
The elders let me go
because I am old.
They let me go
because my eyes have shadows
and I move with the ache of eons.

I do not tell them
that the children know my true nature.
That there is a new race among us.
A race of eternal children.
That we hang together
in the rich laughter of our love.
That we roll balls,
learn words,
and enter the garden of open gates,
and feel only kindness
for the flowers we pick,
the ants we pursue,
the birds that call to our fingers
reaching for them.
That nothing leaves us
without the imprint of our play,
our eternal memory.
Of voices calling from light itself,
and our touching,
our kissing,
the embrace of our weightless souls.

The children know me
and ask that I pick them up,
being tallest,
and accept me into their tribe.
I hid my true self from the elders
so many years.
I am a child,
I am home again.
The elders do not know
how much I love them.